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Christopher R. Hill, former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, was US Ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Macedonia, and Poland, a US special envoy for Kosovo, a negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, and the chief US negotiator with North Korea from 2005-2009. He is currently Dean of the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and the author of Outpost.

Christopher R. Hill suggests how the world should end the two wars in Syria. The one fought between the Assad regime and the opposition "can be resolved only through a diplomatic solution" if both sides see no prospect of fighting to the bitter end. Peace talks have been held in Vienna "involving a wide range of world powers and regional actors," but without the opposition groups.
The other war on the Islamic State "will require a very different approach." Instead of "talking to" and "compromising with" ISIS, Hill says the international community has to "galvanize an alliance of countries dedicated to the group’s complete eradication." It explains François Hollande's flurry of visits across the world after the terror attacks on Paris to seek a vast anti-ISIS coalition. Indeed, it is senseless to opt for any "political, diplomatic, or territorial arrangement with such a group."
" Yet how true is it that "the Islamic State’s war is, in a sense, also a civil war?" In fact ISIS has exploited the civil war in Syria to encroach on territories lost by the regime to the opposition. It seized Raqqa and set up its capital there in 2014, after having driven the Syrian rebels out.
In the face of what the Islamic State embraces and the threat it poses to the world, Hill insists "all relevant countries must agree" that ISIS has "no legitimate role to play anywhere," quoting George W. Bush's statement: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." But he oversees the fact that not everybody is keen on eradicating ISIS. Erdogan prefers to fight the Kurds; Assad needs ISIS to justify his war against the Syrian rebels, who are also seen as terrorists by Russia. The Sunni Arabs' main objective is to overthrow Assad and they turn a blind eye to the Islamic State. Instead of fighting ISIS, Saudi Arabia had directed the Sunni resources to targeting the Houti rebels in Yemen, causing massive collateral damage.
Hill says "Israel cannot be blamed for all of the region’s problems." But does he see any role Israel play in the civil war in Syria? He, like many others are trying to save Syria from breaking up and hopes for a peaceful transition of power in the post-Assad era with an inclusive government.
As "this month marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Accords, which ended the Bosnian War," he proposes a similar peace plan to resolve the Syrian crisis - to set up an international “contact group” that would agree on a "framework", and to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table in order "to reach agreement within the framework." Hill ought to know that the Dayton Peace Accords brought temporary peace between the Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia.

If young men and women have joined Isis, it is because they perceived that Isis offered them the project of a common future: "Better to die fighting for a Caliphate that may never happen, than hang around here another day, and listen to the promises of a two-faced political class, or the conspiring pleas of our boring parents, and go on playing dead so that THEY can all feel good."
Isis is merely the symptom of what is "rotten in Denmark", as Shakespeare would say.

This is off-base. Demonizing and isolating the Islamic State will not work. The demonization only validates their radical credentials, and radicals almost always win out in revolutions. Similarly, surrounding states can't ignore the Islamic State's Islamic character. The Islamic State's leaders know their region, and adopted their colors with one eye on those surrounding states.

So, if we're going to start anywhere, it should be with an end to hopes that we can wish it away or somehow outlaw it. That's not going to happen. There just is too much popular support in surrounding states for what the Islamic State is trying to accomplish.

Secondly, the Dayton accords are a good model for a settlement in Iraq and Syria, but a final accord is going to have to go further and take in aspects of the Paris accords that ended the Vietnam War. For the Sunni Arab movement that Islamic State now heads is as much about unifying a people as it is about separating them from others. Sometime between now and a final peace in the region, that will have to be recognized.

The west cannot make any diplomatic negotiation with ISIS or any Muslim believers, because they do not understand their belief and the root of their attitude. That's why, only Muslim leaders of the world should act within this process and find Islamic means to stop ISIS`s terrorist actions and show them how they spoil Islam with their deeds.

The mistakes of (western countries, liberals, intellectuals) all forces have been striving to establish democracy haven't been enough critical of the real source of the ideology. They either behaved apologetic or diplomatic sometimes in denial towards the source of the ideology. The issue became an issue between western (defined as a representative of christianity) and jihadist ideology (defined as a representatives of Islam). This wrongly established equation generated wrong outcome: Christian world is against the islamic world. Then it became easier to generate conspiracy theory(s) for every situation to justify the ideology.

It is fundamentally an issue to be discussed by Muslim world openly, directly and unequivocally. All democratic and liberal forces should call on Islamic World to deal with issue Intellectual, institutionally and politically. They have been following an hypocritical policy.
As long as the Islamic World doesn't accept its responsibility to come up with solution, the west will have to experience with symptoms/outcomes of the source.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Any solution to extremism (under the banner of whatever faith or belief) must come from within and not through outside interference of any sort. Leaders of Muslim communities around the world must come together and propose a solution and not just condemn what is going on. The same must apply to all other faiths with no exception! They should start to clean up from within, like the Pope started doing. The politicians, all politicians, must stay out of it and should concentrate their fight on the narcotics and the sources of funding this malice. We had F. Hollande of France declaring war on terror, and the best he could do, was to kill two drug addicts and one bystander and shutting Paris for half a day and if it was not for the help of the “Moroccan Intelligence” he would not have been able to do so either.

To wait for what? The big power houses are benefiting from the crisis in the ME and no one in here or anywhere else is naïve. Naivety comes from self-denial. A medicine that has been used for nearly 5 years and has not worked, only a naïve would advocate on continuing on using it. And by the way, they constitute nearly a third of the world population. That is a quite sizable number…

Syria is not involved in two wars; it is embroiled in multiple levels of clashes and as each day passes the situation on the ground gets more complicated as different actors join the fray. So the question should be why doesn't the West just walk away? Why persist in pursuing failed policies? Except for the EU, most other major players in the Syrian imbroglio are anathema to Western values. To support one side or the other is inimical to the liberal world order. Assad, Iran, Hizballah, the al-Nusrah Front, the Syrian Free Army, the Saudi axis, etc., will never be reliable allies or passive enemies.

If we were to cease from participating in the Syrian conflict it will linger unabated. It will definitely create more refugees but all these different warring factions will most probably decimate each other like Iraq and Iran did when they fought in the 1980's. Following this course of action, the focus of the jihadi forces would switch from expanding their low-intensity warfare against the West to an all out regional war between Shias and Sunnis. (Russia would most probably depart from the area too discarding their naval ambitions in the Mediterranean and if they stayed the brunt of the Islamist ire would be centered on them). A plausible scenario like this would definitely favor the West.

As current history has demonstrated all other approaches to the Middle East have foundered. It is imperative that we discard all the unsuccessful policies of the past and try a fresh method lest the Syrian struggle becomes the Achilles heel of the West.

Mr. Laxton what I fear is that the West is gradually being sucked into a Middle East Viet-Nam type scenario. All these "actors" in Syria share a deep loathing for Western civilization. So no matter whether Assad is dethroned or not; if ISIS remains controlling half of Syria; if the al-Nusrah Front conquers Damascus; or any other possible script one thing is guaranteed: none will favor the West.

Now you are correct in stating that a complete Western withdrawal will put Lebanon, Jordan, the Kurds and even Israel in danger so there has to be certain red lines in place that cannot be crossed by ISIS, any other group or state. But the aim of all the terror Islamist organizations, ISIS included, is to bait and bleed the West. Their low-intensity warfare campaign that has been ongoing since the 70's is gradually draining us financially, eroding civil liberties and inducing a constant trepidation among the citizenry of the liberal world order.

If the West persists its current policies in dealing with the Islamist terrorist networks and those states that supports them it will never win. Either we engage like in World War II against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany or else it is best to disentangle.

With or without the West intervening, the confrontation in Syria will linger on. The Syrian civil war has become a Sunni/Shia clash. Let the militant factions and their sponsors battle it out. Bombing ISIS strengthens Iran/Hizballah. Does the West want a triumphant Iran/Hizballah axis in the Middle East?

If we extricate ourselves from Syria it won't stop ISIS or any other terrorist entity from perpetrating attacks against the West but by retreating we will allow our enemies to focus on destroying each other. No longer will their propaganda departments blame Western warplanes from bombing "civilian" targets, expanding Zionism or training/arming “apostates” that perpetrate "atrocities" since it will become a strictly a Sunni/Shia war.

Francisco,
You make a good case. But, the Middle East is the land of unintended consequences.if we stand aside on Syria and the various Islamist forces defeat Asad and eventually turn to Jordan and Lebanon, do we stand back then? I would also add to this argument the Kurds - generally secular and pro-Western. If we are not willing to help them defend themselves, what is left? I am largely persuaded by the case to stand aside but I worry where that leaves us beyond the initial or current phase of the Syria conflict. We have to start operating by some principles that guide us on when and where we are willing to intervene. And, to start to chisel away at the edifice of cynicism created by the Iraq war and its consequences.

Christopher R Hill explains that Saudi Arabia's support for ISIS - properly conceived - means that the KSA and ISIS are interchangeably responsible for the recent acts of terror in Europe. Now, this is where it gets complicated; I am against "regime change" (on principle) but if changing the regime in the KSA means that Saudi Arabia will stop supporting terrorists, then "regime change" may have a justification in some instances.

"Perhaps then everyone can turn their attention to crushing the Islamic State once and for all."

That's the punchline? Suggesting that combatting terrorists is less important than altering the Syrian power structure to your liking?
The author is with us or against us indeed -- I can't help but think that he has now clarified where he stands.

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